Matthew 26

http://www.esvbible.org/Matthew+26/

After Jesus finished telling what would happen on Judgement Day, He told His disciples that the Passover neared, which they all knew because they were Jewish men, and that Jesus would be arrested shortly thereafter and killed. He knew that the plot was already in motion. Meanwhile, to show this plot in motion, Matthew shows the reader what the Chief Priests are up to. He is particularly concerned with Caiaphas, the head of the Pharisees. With the others, Caiaphas decides that they need to secretly arrest Jesus and kill Him. They strategically plan not to do so during the ceremonies because they are afraid of how the people will react.

Jesus and the disciples go to stay at the home of a man named Simon the Leper in a town called Bethany. While Jesus is at the table, a woman came up to Jesus and poured a container of perfume on His head. When the disciples saw this, they thought they had it covered. They tried to discipline her by telling her how she could have sold the perfume and given the money to the poor instead of using it on Jesus. The disciples knew that Jesus did not care for particularly fancy things. Throughout His time, He preferred and maintained to keep to a simple lifestyle; in fact, remember He was born in a stable with dirty, stinky animals and placed in the container where the animals eat. This event is not what I would call a noble birth. But Jesus, as part of the inseparable yet independent trinity chose this birth for Himself when He spoke of it to the prophets thousands of years before. Second, they knew Jesus often spoke of selling everything and giving the money to the poor. They thought they had Jesus' teachings down. How often we mistake in our efforts to please Jesus. Both of those things that the disciples thought were true, but those teachings didn't go with the moment. People do not come first. Remember the two greatest commandements Jesus lists when asked: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. This woman showed Jesus love by pouring out to Him everything she had. The Bible does not specify how much money this woman had, but the disciples say that the bottle of perfume was expensive. We can assume it was to be used for special ceremonies; therefore, I assume that bottle of perfume was the most important thing to her, and by choice, she gave it up because she knew Jesus was more important. How much more of ourselves can we give to Jesus that we hold back? Our time, money, skills, knowledge. What does God want from you that you have not totally committed over to Him yet? How often to we judge others for what they do in their walks towards God when we ourselves have not understood the lessons He has taught us for so long? Then, Jesus tells the disciples that when people talk of the gospel, they will tell her story throughout the world. Jesus rewards her in that huge way. She is listed as a servant to Jesus across the world for generations. Sure her name is not recorded in this account of the story, but in Heaven, when she hears this story being taught on Earth, she knows it's her, and she praises God all the more. What more will He give us for honoring Him when we cannot even see Him.

After all of this talk that Jesus does, up to just the moment before, the ball begins to start rolling when Judas goes to the chief priests and asks what they will pay him if he turns Jesus over to them. Judas kept the money for the disciples. That was his job. Often, it seemed his job got the better of Him, and Jesus reprimanded Judas. Finally, this greed and desire to make more money led him to betray the Savior of the Earth, the Son of God. He sold Jesus out for thirty pieces of silver. From that moment on, Judas looks for a moment when he can betray Jesus.

When the time for the Passover celebrations began, the disciples asked Jesus where He would like to go for the festival. He tells them to find a certain man, tell Him that the time is near, and that Jesus and the disciples will spend Passover at his house. The disciples follow Jesus' instructions and set up for the Passover celebration that night. At dinner, they were eating when Jesus announces that one of the disciples will betray Him. Can you imagine the tension at that moment? Your leader, best friend, and the one who tells you He is the Son of God tells you that you or one of your other closest friends will betray Him. The Bible says the disciples were very sad. I imagine the silence and the stillness of that shocking news lasted a while. I can't say how long, but eventually, each disciple one by one around the table begin to ask Jesus if Jesus means him. Jesus tells them that the man who will betray Him has already dipped his hand in the bowl, meaning, the act has already been started. When you put your hand in a bowl, it's only there for a second, but when you take your hand out, it's still wet. Judas met with the high priests, and his act was irreversible. Jesus tells the disciples that it would be better for the one who betrays Him to have never been born. That's scary. Judas has a special place in Hell for killing the human form of God. Then, Judas asks that Jesus surely can't mean him. How odd that seems to us, knowing what we know will happen. I bet there have been moments in your life when you were lost, dead in your sins, yet you went to church, you did the things your Christian friends did. Maybe you even prayed aloud for all to hear. But inside, you were like Judas. All the other disciples have asked if Jesus meant them, and the table finally turned to Judas, and he jumped right in when he knew what he'd done. When you live in sin but portray the look of being one with Jesus, He knows what you're doing. Look at Jesus' answer to Judas. He simply tells him, "So you say." He didn't call Judas out, but I bet Judas knew that Jesus knew. Just like when we pull these acts of hiding the disconnect or the sin, we know that Jesus knows. He doesn't call us out and say, "Look who messed up and tried to fool everyone by putting on this show?" That's not what Jesus is about, but He'll let you know He knows, and you can't escape Him. After that, Jesus more or less drops the matter and moves on with the ceremony. He takes bread, blesses it, and breaks it. He tells the disciples to eat it because it is His body. Then, He takes a cup of wine, blesses it, and tells the disciples to drink because it is His blood. He says His blood will poor out to begin the new covenant with them. The old covenant, which God gave to Abraham, will end with the death and resurrection of Jesus. The old way to Heaven is gone. The new covenant says the way to Heaven is through Jesus. The disciples sang a hymn with Jesus and then went out to the Mount of Olives.

Jesus tells the disciples that they will deny Him that very night because of Him. This of course will fulfill a prophesy. In the end, Jesus will rise and go ahead of them to Galilee. He will meet up with the again because they will come back to them, and He will take them. Peter tells Jesus that he will never deny Him, but Jesus tells Peter that Peter will disown Jesus three times before morning. Peter says he will sooner die with Jesus than disown Him. The others agree. So many times I have written to you that people come and go with their faith as is convenient to them. When it seems unsafe, even if only socially, to follow Jesus, some will fall away. Jesus even says at some points all will fall away from Him. Even the disciples do so. Jesus is not angry with them, though. They are the most honored in Heaven. Jesus will always take us back if we truly turn to Him, even after times when we have rejected Him.

Jesus went with the disciples to a place called Gethsemane. He told the disciples to wait for Him but took Peter, John, and James with Him. After a while, Jesus told them that His soul is overwhelmed, so He left them to pray and keep watch. Jesus went on further and asked God if anyone could take this on for Him, not for Jesus' will but for God's. Even Jesus in human form felt fear and anguish and all the other millions of emotions that must come when you know you will soon be killed. The difference is, He kept it all about God's will. He knew He had to come and die to save us, but He just wanted to know if God could do it any other way. Then, He went back to the disciples and found them sleeping. He yelled at them to wake up, stay alert, and pray. Then, Jesus went back on His own and prayed that if He must die, that it be the will of God. When He returned again, again the disciples slept, but He did not disturb them this time. Instead, He went back and prayed the same prayer. Then, He returned to the disciples again and told them that His time had come. Sometimes we mess up with what Jesus calls us to do, and sometimes He will try to set us back on the path that He set up for us, but other times, the opportunity is gone. In that case, Jesus leaves that moment and tells us to come with Him in the next one.

At that moment, Judas arrived with soldiers from the priests. He told them that the one they should arrest will be the one he kisses. So Judas went up and greeted Jesus with a kiss. Jesus told him and all the others to do what they came to do. The men arrested Jesus. Peter drew his sword and cut off a priest's servant's ear. Jesus told him to put away his sword because whoever draws thew sword will die by the sword. He asks if the disciples think Jesus can't ask the father to put an army of angels at His disposal, but Jesus must die to fulfill what the prophets wrote. Jesus asked the men arresting Him if He led a rebellion that caused them to arrest Him. He tells them that they had plenty of opportunities to arrest Him when He taught at the temple, but the Scriptures needed to come true, so they did not. Afterwards, just as Jesus had predicted, all of the disciples fled so that they would not get arrested too.

The guards took Jesus to where the chief priests awaited Him. Peter followed at a safe distance and waited to hear the outcome. The priests called false witnesses against Jesus, but nothing worked for them. Finally, two witnesses came forward and said that they heard Jesus tell people that He is the Son of God. The chief priests perked up at this, but Jesus did not respond. The chief priests charged Him in the name of God to answer what was just said. Jesus told them that it was true. And He tells them that after they kill Him, they will see Him sitting in Heaven next to God. The high priest told the crowd that they all heard the blaspheme. Jesus had just said He is God which is against God (when it's not true). When He asked them what they should do, they said they should kill Jesus. They all rushed up to Him and beat Him and mocked Him.

Meanwhile, outside, a servant girl asked Peter if he had been one of the disciples, but he denied it. Then, as he left, another girl said that he surely had to be one who followed Jesus, but again Peter told them he didn't know what they were talking about. Finally, a group approached him, but he swore up and down that he was not a follower of Jesus. At that moment, morning came, and Peter remembered what Jesus predicted. He left that place and wept for what he had done. Jesus is always right.